Various types of supports are commercially employed for the shipment of goods, such as chairs. One type of chair which should be supported during shipping is an office chair. Such office chairs are often shipped with one chair in a lowermost position and an additional chair disposed atop the lower chair and in an inverted orientation relative thereto. Accordingly, supports are typically utilized to stabilize and/or protect the chairs during transport. One such arrangement manufactured by the assignee of the instant invention includes the use of resilient cushions, often called “buns”. More specifically, with the two chairs in vertically stacked relation so that the respective chair backs are disposed in horizontally spaced and opposed relation with one another and likewise with the respective chair seats disposed in vertically spaced and opposed relation with one another, a bun is engaged in a nesting fashion over the terminal free end of each chair back, i.e. between each chair back and the seat of the opposed chair. This arrangement, however, results in the transmission of vertical loading forces through the respective chair backs which can result in damage to the chairs during shipping.
Another type of support utilized for shipping office-type chairs is of a foam block-type construction, which foam is relatively rigid and placed between the respective seats of two vertically stacked chairs. While the above block-type support allows the advantageous seat-to-seat support of the respective stacked chairs and avoids undesirable forces on the chair backs encountered with the bun arrangement discussed above, the rigid foam construction of the block-type support is expensive to manufacture, and requires a large amount of space for storage of the supports when not in use and during shipping thereof.
Accordingly, it is an object of the instant invention to provide an improved chair support for supporting a pair of chairs, such as office-type chairs, in vertically stacked relation with one another in a seat-to-seat and back-to-back orientation as discussed above, wherein the support is constructed entirely from a one-piece, monolithic blank of corrugated material, such as cardboard. The blank can thus be shipped and stored in a flat configuration which greatly reduces shipping and storage space, and is much less costly to manufacture.
Other objects and purposes of the invention will be apparent to persons familiar with arrangements of this general type upon reading the following specification and inspecting the accompanying drawings.
Certain terminology will be used in the following description for convenience and reference only, and will not be limiting. For example, the words “upwardly”, “downwardly”, “rightwardly” and “leftwardly” will refer to directions in the drawings to which reference is made. The words “inwardly” and “outwardly” will refer to directions toward and away from, respectively, the geometric center A of the support and designated parts thereof. Said terminology will include the words specifically mentioned, derivatives thereof, and words of similar import.